Martin I. Jackson, 89, of Fallbrook flew 72 combat missions in World War II. He flew over Nagasaki
a day before and
a day after the atom bomb attack.
JOHN GASTALDO
U-t

Fallbrook, CA_8/5/2013_Marty Jackson has lived quite a life, he flew 72 combat missions in WWII without any damage/fire to his plane. He flew over Nagasaki the day before the atom bomb was dropped and a few days afterward and can talk about what he saw. |Jackson stands atop a plane during WWII.|UT/John Gastaldo/Mandatory Credit: JOHN GASTALDO/U-T SAN DIEGO/ZUMA PRESS

Fallbrook, CA_8/5/2013_Marty Jackson has lived quite a life, he flew 72 combat missions in WWII without any damage/fire to his plane. He flew over Nagasaki the day before the atom bomb was dropped and a few days afterward and can talk about what he saw. |Jackson stands atop a plane during WWII.|UT/John Gastaldo/Mandatory Credit: JOHN GASTALDO/U-T SAN DIEGO/ZUMA PRESS

Fallbrook, CA_8/5/2013_Marty Jackson has lived quite a life, he flew 72 combat missions in WWII without any damage/fire to his plane. He flew over Nagasaki the day before the atom bomb was dropped and a few days afterward and can talk about what he saw. |Marty Jackson in his WWII uniform.| UT/John Gastaldo/Mandatory Credit: JOHN GASTALDO/U-T SAN DIEGO/ZUMA PRESS

Fallbrook, CA_8/5/2013_Marty Jackson has lived quite a life, he flew 72 combat missions in WWII without any damage/fire to his plane. He flew over Nagasaki the day before the atom bomb was dropped and a few days afterward and can talk about what he saw. |Marty Jackson in his WWII uniform.| UT/John Gastaldo/Mandatory Credit: JOHN GASTALDO/U-T SAN DIEGO/ZUMA PRESS

FALLBROOK 
Sixty-eight years ago today, U.S. forces dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, and Fallbrook retiree Martin I. “Buzz” Jackson had a front-row seat to the shocking destruction.

Jackson, who will turn 90 on Monday, was a pilot in the 311th Fighter Squadron, and he led a group of P-47 Thunderbolts over the ill-fated city one day before and one day after the infamous blast. His memories of what he saw are just as fresh today as they were then, and he still strongly supports this country’s decision to use the controversial weapon.

“The people that complain about it weren’t exposed to killing like we were. We loved the A bomb. It brought an end to the war,” said Jackson, who believes a protracted war on the Japanese mainland would’ve cost many more lives than the tens of thousands killed in the blast.

Jackson flew 72 combat missions during World War II, most of them as a fighter bomber, and dropped 50 tons of ordnance in strafing, cluster- and skip-bombing, and napalm runs over Japanese troops in the Philippines. On Aug. 6, 1945, Jackson and his fellow pilots were surprised to learn that a uranium bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” had been dropped over Hiroshima.

“We didn’t know what an A bomb was back then. All we knew was that it was something big and new,” Jackson said.

Two days later, Jackson led a squadron from the 58th Fighter Group out of Okinawa on a sweep of the Japanese island of Kyushu, which includes the western port city of Nagasaki. The first time he saw the city, he was shocked to find it completely unscathed.

“We went over the house tops and I saw all these factories and there was no damage whatsoever. I wondered what the B-24s (bombers) had been doing that they missed this city,” said Jackson, who said he later learned that Nagasaki was on a no-bombing list because the U.S. military had other plans for it.

At 11:02 the next morning, a plutonium bomb known as “Fat Man” exploded over Nagasaki, killing more than 40,000 people. The next day, Jackson said he took out another squadron and “made a beeline” for Nagasaki, this time to survey the bomb’s damage from an altitude of 5,000 feet. For 20 minutes, the pilots circled the city until their fuel ran low.

“It was as if a big hand had come down and smashed everything flat,” he said. “The only thing left standing in the area of ground zero were chimneys and little steel poles. Usually with bombing, the debris from the buildings would fall into the streets, but all of the streets and sidewalks were perfectly clean, like a street-sweeper had come through. We didn’t know anything about radiation back then, but I wonder how much we were exposed to that day. It’s a wonder we didn’t glow in the dark that night.”

Off to war

Jackson was born and raised in Chicago, where his parents were descendants of Civil War soldiers. He was in college on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The 18-year-old tried to enlist in the Navy the next day, but his father refused consent. It would be another year before Jackson could convince his dad that he’d be safer in the Army Air Corps than as a foot soldier called up in the draft.